My best advice would be to avoid the simcard, and rent a mobile hotspot.
No settings, just switch on and you have a new wifi signal. When finished, just ship it back!
Try googling "rent mobile hotspot france" to see the providers available (works for other countries as well )
Enjoy!

I've been in France for 2 weeks, I purchased a prepaid micro sim card from LeFrenchMobile to use in my iPad and its been working great! They offer data bundles that give really cheap rates for data usage.
You can take a look at their website, they explain everything clearer and its all in english.

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